Consumption. By observing the following rules the danger of catching the disease will be reduced to a minimum: I. Do not permit persons having consumption to spit on the floor or on cloths unless the latter be immediately burned. The expectoration of persons suspected to have consumption should be caught in earthen or glass dishes containing the following solution: Corrosive sublimate, 1 grain. and finally thrown into the sewer or burned. II. Do not sleep in a room occupied by a person who has consumption. The living room of a consumptive patient should have as little furniture as practicable. Hangings should be especially avoided. The use of carpets and rugs ought always to be avoided. III. Do not fail to wash thoroughly the eating utensils of a person who has consumption as soon after eating as possible, using boiling water for the purpose. Do not mingle the unwashed clothing of a consumptive person with similar clothing of other persons. The soiled clothing of a consumptive person should be removed at once, put in boiling water for forty-five minutes, or otherwise disinfected. V. Do not fail to catch the bowel discharges of a consumptive person with diarrhoea in a vessel containing corrosive sublimate one grain to water one pint. VI. Do not fail to consult the family physician regarding the social relations of persons suffering from suspected consumption. VII. Do not permit mothers suspected of having consumption to nurse their offspring. VIII. Household pets (animals or birds) are quite susceptible to tuberculosis, therefore: Do not expose them to persons afflicted with consumption; also do not keep but destroy at once all household pets suspected of having consumption, otherwise they may give it to human beings. Consumption. IX. Do not fail to cleanse thoroughly the floors, walls and ceiling of the living and sleeping rooms of persons suffering from consumption, at least once in two weeks. By order of the Board. EMMONS CLARK, Secretary. CHAS. GEO. WILSON, President. The contagiousness of this disease may be dangerous to the public schools, and the presence of consumptives in the school room may endanger the lives and health of fellow pupils. As a protective measure persons known to be affected with pulmonary consumption should be excluded from schools, colleges and other institutions of learning until such recovery from the disease is had that there is no cough nor expectoration. The great source of danger is the expectoration of the consumptive, from the lungs. It swarms with the disease germs, which are very tenacious of life. Drying does destroy their vitality. Painful as it may be, the consumptive should be impressed with the fact that he is a source of infection to his family and friends, as well as to the public; also, that the expectoration or sputum is dangerous, and must be properly disposed of. It should be received into a spit-cup or spittoon, in which is a little water, and must never be spit upon the floor or carpets, or received in handkerchiefs. If it is necessary to use handkerchiefs occasionally with the sputum, they should be boiled before the sputum becomes dry. In the house a small paper cup can be used, set inside an earthen or metal cup. The paper cup should be burned each day. The cup should be kept covered against access by flies. If spittoons are used they should be of such shape that the sputum will fall into the water without touching the sides of the vessel. It should be thoroughly cleansed once or twice each day with boiling water and potash soap. If there is house drainage the contents may be emptied into the water closet; if not, they should be burned. They should never be thrown upon the ground near a dwelling, nor manure heaps, where animals may get at them, nor where they may soil animal food. No boxes or vessels filled with saw dust should be used. Consumption. When away from home a spit-flask containing a small quantity of five per cent solution of carbolic acid may be used. The floors, wood work, furniture of a room in which a consumptive patient stays should never be dusted, but wiped with a moist cloth. A consumptive should absolutely refrain from nursing her babe, not because her breath is dangerous, but because the disease may be easily transmitted by kissing the babe on the mouth, as many mothers do. As it has been demonstrated that the use of milk from tuberculous cows produces tuberculosis in animals, it is apparent at once that a mother with consumption may transmit the disease to her offspring by nursing. A consumptive person's clothing should be scrupulously kept, and washed apart from all other clothing, and be thoroughly boiled. When a consumptive person dies, the clothing and bed clothing previously used should be boiled. The room and furniture should be washed with a corrosive sublimate solution. If the walls are papered the paper should be wet with a disinfecting solution, then entirely removed and the walls repapered. The room should then be thoroughly exposed to fresh air and sunshine for several days. Consumptive patients should not be permitted to expectorate on the floor of railroad cars or other public conveyances. The dissecting room of medical colleges, reveals many cases, of persons who have died from other causes, have had consumption and recovered. Like instances are recorded in the practice of many physicians. The tendency to recovery is greatly enhanced by the agency of regular life, nutritious food, vigorous exercise without fatigue, and abundance of pure air. Upon the benefit of pure air exercise, Dr. H. I. Bowditch, of Boston, one of the most eminent sanitarians in this country, in an interesting paper read before the American Climatological Association, gives some interesting personal observations. He says that his father at thirty-five years of age, had all the signs of consumption: cough, hemorrhage from the lungs, diarrhoea, fever, emaciation and great debility. In this condition he set out on a tour through New England, traveling in a chaise with a friend for a companion, and a driver. Consumption. At the end of the first day's travel he was so much exhausted by hemorrhage that his friend was advised to take him home to die. He, however, persisted in his effort, and every day brought him added strength. He traveled on this tour seven hundred and fortyeight miles, and returned home greatly improved in every respect. He lived thirty years after this, dying at the age of sixty-five years of cancer of the stomach. It was his custom during these thirty years to walk two or three times daily from one and a half to two miles. Further, Dr. Bowditch says his father married his cousin, who died after many years of infirmity, of consumption. There were eight children as a result of this union, six of whom reached adult life. According to all laws of heredity it would be expected that at least there would be a marked pre-disposition to lung disease. The facts show, however, that of ninety-three children and grandchildren not one showed the least trace of consumption. The doctor believes this condition was the result of his father having required all his children to take all the exercise out doors possible, knowing the great benefit that had come to him from such a course. He says: "If any of us, while attending school were observed to be drooping, or made the least pretense even of being not exactly well, he took us from school, and very often sent us to the country to have farm life and out of door play to our hearts' content. In consequence of this early instruction, all of his descendants have become thoroughly impressed with the advantages of daily walking, of Summer vacations in the country, and of camping out, etc., among the mountains. These habits have been transmitted, I think, to his grandchildren, in a stronger form if possible, than he himself had them. In conclusion he said: "I submit these facts and thoughts for candid, mature and practical consideration and use in the treatment all are called to make of this terrible scourge in all parts of this Union. For my own part, I fully believe that many patients now die from want of this open air treatment. "For years I have directed every consumptive patient to walk daily from three to six miles, never to stay at home unless a violent storm is raging. When they are in doubt about going out, owing Croup and Diphtheria. to bad weather, I direct them to solve the doubt, not by staying in the house, but by going out." Under the rapid march of sanitary science, there is abundant warrant for the belief that the time is not far distant when consumption will be controlled and prevented as easily and surely as diphtheria or scarlet fever, and that the shadow of the "Great White Plague" will no longer cover the human race. CROUP AND DIPHTHERIA. No argument is needed to prove the importance of croup and diphtheria in their relation to the public health. The more than three thousand cases of diphtheria that occur in Iowa every year, with the six hundred deaths resulting therefrom, afford a more practical, and hence more convincing argument. Aside from con sumption and pneumonia, diphtheria is the most fatal disease we have in the State. The object in grouping croup and diphtheria is to suggest some points of similarity, if not to prove their identity. Within the last seven or eight years a wonderful amount of interest has been aroused in regard to the etiology of diphtheria. Bacteriologists have been busy in their various laboratories, with the result that it is now almost universally conceded that the organism producing this disease has been fully identified. If, indeed, the cause is now satisfactorily demonstrated, it will not be hard to prove what, if any, similarity exists between croup and diphtheria, and to arrive at the most efficient methods of prevention and treatment. The question for the last two or three years has been as to whether the pathogenic germ is a streptococcus or a bacillus. A very brief review of the observations of bacteriologists on this line will not only be interesting and instructive, but is essential. In 1883, Klebs announced the presence in some cases of diphtheria of a bacillus, and that he believed that the disease was produced by different micro-organisms, because he had observed that the bacteria common in Prague were very different from those seen by him in Zurich. In the same year, (1883), Löffler began the |